EVs are gaining momentum. But the current policy path entrenches car dependence and commits us to unrealistic, unjust and unsustainable levels of mining. Can we shape a better future with less mining?
Dear Nick - thoughtful as always. I'd like to suggest 3 things.
1 You start your articles by recognising that 8 billion people is about 7 billion too many, and we need to prioritise getting the birth rate under replacement, and limiting immigration of countries with falling populations, like Canada, to under replacement. A falling population, however gently, changes everything, by halting housing starts, and growth. Stopping growth is primary, and growth starts with population. I think you are going here with trying to change from a consumption culture, and both avenues are good. But population is the main driver.
2 This isn't an increase in mining, it is a potential switch from extracting oil to burn, to mining minerals which can be re-used. I think you're backing into the false message of the German politician, and I don't like that you platformed his bad trope. I'm glad you are noting human rights abuses, but they are not a reason to not switch from fossil fuels to EV cars. Qatar, Russia and Saudi Arabia are just as bad as mining companies. Let's starve Putin, so we can confront Teck at home.
It is interesting, that the elites are starting to jump ship, and switch from one resource they can dominate to another, but renewable energy is different. Big wind farms are bad, but I live off grid and get all my power from wind and sun. I have enough to charge an EV car. Most of my batteries are lead carbon, which are readily available and recyclable. Everyone could do this.
3 I highly recommend not getting too caught up in the details like "how much lithium do we think we need". How much oil are we already using? Nobody thought to care.
The only thing that matters, is stopping clearcutting and burning fossil fuels, and trying to get the population to adopt local, resilient technology, like insulation and solar power. The fossil fuel companies are circulating propaganda against renewables. That's who fed the German politician, an LNG lobbyist. We shouldn't be amplifying their message.
IN SHORT: Mining abuses are bad, but population reduction and switching from fossil fuels to solar power are good. We can strive for all of the things we want at once.
Hey Ben, thanks for reading. I hope I didn't give the impression that I was backing the right wing message here. I was trying to chime into the discussion in a far more nuanced way than that, and you're of course right: the fossil fuel footprint is godawful, and a lithium footprint would likely be smaller in terms of ecological and human rights abuses.
But the giant increase in lithium mining required for a wholesale replacement of our already-far-too-large vehicle fleet is something that needs to be reckoned with (especially given that it borders on physically impossible in scale), and it's something we *can* reckon with by pursuing public policy that reverses the trend of ever more personal car ownership and ever larger cars, in turn accelerating decarbonization. It's not just about lithium, either. I, and many more credentialed people than me, have written about how remaining on our global "total number of vehicles" trajectory but flipping the switch to full electric would still be a problem from an emissions standpoint. We simply cannot have as many cars as we currently have, and we absolutely better not have as many cars as the auto industry forecasts we'll have by 2050, ICE or electric. Effective climate policy involves doing exactly what the authors of the report in this issue propose: achieving more mobility with fewer cars and a smaller material footprint. It's achievable! But the path to achieving that isn't as simple as handing out huge subsidies to the auto industry, which is the path we're heading down right now.
With regards to your points about population, I find that a focus on population is something of a red herring that obscures many of the underlying dynamics and issues. There are definitely too many humans behaving in a specific way, living high-consumption, high-waste, and high-footprint lives (due in many cases to structural factors). There are not necessarily too many humans more broadly, and the idea that there are obscures the fact that the vast majority of people living on Earth today already live 1.5C compatible lives. It's the top 10% by income that's causing the problem -- with proportionally higher levels of responsibility within each fraction above that. Population is definitely another nuanced issue and I agree I should write about it in the future.
Dear Nick - thoughtful as always. I'd like to suggest 3 things.
1 You start your articles by recognising that 8 billion people is about 7 billion too many, and we need to prioritise getting the birth rate under replacement, and limiting immigration of countries with falling populations, like Canada, to under replacement. A falling population, however gently, changes everything, by halting housing starts, and growth. Stopping growth is primary, and growth starts with population. I think you are going here with trying to change from a consumption culture, and both avenues are good. But population is the main driver.
2 This isn't an increase in mining, it is a potential switch from extracting oil to burn, to mining minerals which can be re-used. I think you're backing into the false message of the German politician, and I don't like that you platformed his bad trope. I'm glad you are noting human rights abuses, but they are not a reason to not switch from fossil fuels to EV cars. Qatar, Russia and Saudi Arabia are just as bad as mining companies. Let's starve Putin, so we can confront Teck at home.
It is interesting, that the elites are starting to jump ship, and switch from one resource they can dominate to another, but renewable energy is different. Big wind farms are bad, but I live off grid and get all my power from wind and sun. I have enough to charge an EV car. Most of my batteries are lead carbon, which are readily available and recyclable. Everyone could do this.
3 I highly recommend not getting too caught up in the details like "how much lithium do we think we need". How much oil are we already using? Nobody thought to care.
The only thing that matters, is stopping clearcutting and burning fossil fuels, and trying to get the population to adopt local, resilient technology, like insulation and solar power. The fossil fuel companies are circulating propaganda against renewables. That's who fed the German politician, an LNG lobbyist. We shouldn't be amplifying their message.
IN SHORT: Mining abuses are bad, but population reduction and switching from fossil fuels to solar power are good. We can strive for all of the things we want at once.
peace
Hey Ben, thanks for reading. I hope I didn't give the impression that I was backing the right wing message here. I was trying to chime into the discussion in a far more nuanced way than that, and you're of course right: the fossil fuel footprint is godawful, and a lithium footprint would likely be smaller in terms of ecological and human rights abuses.
But the giant increase in lithium mining required for a wholesale replacement of our already-far-too-large vehicle fleet is something that needs to be reckoned with (especially given that it borders on physically impossible in scale), and it's something we *can* reckon with by pursuing public policy that reverses the trend of ever more personal car ownership and ever larger cars, in turn accelerating decarbonization. It's not just about lithium, either. I, and many more credentialed people than me, have written about how remaining on our global "total number of vehicles" trajectory but flipping the switch to full electric would still be a problem from an emissions standpoint. We simply cannot have as many cars as we currently have, and we absolutely better not have as many cars as the auto industry forecasts we'll have by 2050, ICE or electric. Effective climate policy involves doing exactly what the authors of the report in this issue propose: achieving more mobility with fewer cars and a smaller material footprint. It's achievable! But the path to achieving that isn't as simple as handing out huge subsidies to the auto industry, which is the path we're heading down right now.
With regards to your points about population, I find that a focus on population is something of a red herring that obscures many of the underlying dynamics and issues. There are definitely too many humans behaving in a specific way, living high-consumption, high-waste, and high-footprint lives (due in many cases to structural factors). There are not necessarily too many humans more broadly, and the idea that there are obscures the fact that the vast majority of people living on Earth today already live 1.5C compatible lives. It's the top 10% by income that's causing the problem -- with proportionally higher levels of responsibility within each fraction above that. Population is definitely another nuanced issue and I agree I should write about it in the future.
Dear Nick we can’t all get electric cars.
Yes, we can. "Ask and ye shall receive." Good government legislation would make electric cars ubiquitous. That is what Nick is asking for.